Final thoughts

Tuesday would have been my father's 96th birthday. The other posts today are all the remaining stories from the recordings, and I've done multiple posts to conclude this week; it seems appropriate.

In the folder with the transcriptions was a letter from my father. It is undated, but reads: 

Dear Larry & Dovey,

It was good to hear your voice on the phone tonite, and I'm glad you have the happy prospects of parenthood. I take great delight in my grandchildren and the greater the number the greater the delight!

And here is the info about my grandparents:

Adam D. Hochstetler, born May 18, 1862 at Goshen, Indiana. Married Feb. 8, 1886 in Elkhart county, Indiana, to Catherine, daughter or Jephtha and Elizabeth (Yoder) Troyer. Catherine was born Jan. 29, 1860, died Sept. 23, 1896 in Fayett county, Illinois. Adam died Dec. 25, 1931, in Hutchinson, Kansas.

I was 11 years old when grampa died and I well remember him, and his huge Amish funeral. You may notice that Papa was 13 months old when his mother died. My grandfather was the eldest of 12 children and my father was the youngest of 8 children. I don't know of any description of my grandmother Hochstetler.

Papa's account of his childhood tells of his living with his grandparents. They were David J. Hochstetler, born April 3, 1839, and died Feb. 8, 1929. David J. Married Magdalene Eash, she was born Aug. 15, 1844, died May 4, 1920 (about a week after I was born!) My grandfather lifes to 69 years, my great grandfather lived to be 90 and his wife lived to be 76.

So much for the family history lesson!

Love, Dad.

With the letter undated I can only speculate that it was written when we found out Dovie was pregnant with "BAILEY ANNE, [born] May 29, 1983," as it's listed in Descendants of David J. and Magdalena Hochstetler, Third Edition 1995. Family listings of descendants of my great-great grandparents take 411 pages. Since the letter was written our listing (family #302) has grown to include "WILLIAM JOSEPH LEE, Mar. 25, 1985."

Joe and I had the opportunity to travel together to visit eastern Pennsylvania; we stopped by the historic marker in Shartlesville, Pennsylvania and even drove into property (marked "Do Not Enter") to see where the Hochstetler homestead was that merited the historical marker.

Later we were in Philadelphia and happened by an office of the National Archives, and stopped in. We were helped to find record of one of our ancestors, an experience that has spurred in Joe interest in the family he had not previously evinced.

Now there is another generation unlisted in "Descendants" books. And now there is at least a partial recounting of the life of David A. Hochstetler/Hostetler, family #297.


So much for the family history lesson.

 

 

 

 

 

 

`Going back to Brown County

In later years, after I was married, long after I'd left Colorado, we took a trip to Indiana to a family reunion. I also wanted the chance to go to Brown County to see some of the folks down there (this was about 1939.)

The first place was close to the school district neighborhood. We stopped in Edinburgh to meet schoolmates. One place we stopped to see a schoolmate, Love Snyder. She married a man named John Hamlin.

She hadn't seen me since I was wearing Amish clothes, at about age 15. Uncle Amos was with us. I told him not to come up (he was Amish), because I wanted to see if she would remember me.

Her husband came to the door and I asked him is he knew me. He said "no."

I said "have your wife come and see if she knows."

So she come to the door.

I said "Do you know me?"

She said "no."

Just then Uncle Amos got out of the car and came up to the house. When she saw Uncle Amos she thought right away who I was.

"Oh, it's Davey."

They used to call me Davey, you know.

We told them we were going to Brown County.

Love said "We'll meet you there. We'll get ready."

She had never met my wife, but it wasn't long until they were like two old cronies who hadn't met for a long time. She was glad she came to visit.

Later, we were again in Brown County. Some of us went to look up Virgil Condon, one of our school mates. We found out he wanted to get with us. We went to Nashville, the county seat, and saw the wooden jail. We had quite a time sightseeing.

Amish Church

Amish church services were in German. They were very devout. They believe in the born again experience, the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost), and they believe that every day is a holy day. Baptism is practices, at maturity. Footwashing is practices once a year. Every member participates, women separate from men. Then they stand to their feet after the ceremony and greet each other with a holy kiss. Sometimes it's just the preachers who greet each other that way. The Amish lived their religion.

There would be two or three preachers each service. Children were well-behaved, and smaller children (grade-school age) were in every service, which are held in homes. Families have a clean-up day to get ready - sometimes neighbors help. The day before they'll bake a batch of cookies to use in keeping the restless children quiet. You don't hear noise.

One church had a nice building. They don't have musical instruments. They sing in German, and the song service always includes The Love Song. One man leads the singing, others follow.

Preachers are chosen by lot. They have a special meeting, like a conference. Other preachers come to help select and get ready to cast lots. They would take several Bibles. The preachers and an elder or two decide who they feel would have the qualifications to be a preacher. Then they get the names of three men, put them in the Bible. After preachers have been in the church for a while, they ordain them as Bishops. My Uncle Sam was a Bishop.

Amish think of non-Amish as being English people. Not worse, just English.

The Amish want to keep their family together. Barn-raising gets the community together. Most Amish are farmers. In some places Amish work in factories. They make their own clothes.

Every spring, the Amish gather in a large congregation. They have a lot of young people, and when the young reach the age of accountability and feel like they want to join the church, the preacher and the elders talk to them and let them know what is involved: staying free from worldly amusements.

More Childhood Reminiscences

The father makes the children's toys.

When I was young I found some discarded gears and played with them, imitating a wagon or traction engine [a steam engine] like they used on the farm.

When I was living with my grandparents I didn't have anyone to play with. Two of my uncles, Levi and Sam, had boys my age.

My cousin Elmer had a sharp pocket knife. We'd cut sticks into horses. Once we were playing and I felt my horse wasn't as good as his. He did good work with wood. When he got a little older he made his own play wagon. Later on he became a carpenter.

Girls help with the housework, boys with farm work. I remember working in the field when I was too small to ride behind the harrow. They'd put a box on the harrow so I could drive the team of horses. I was probably eight or nine years old. I was too young to plow.

Goodbye Mississippi

But the mail carrier didn't know which way father had gone.

We went down the road to another town. The first place we came to was a filling station. We stopped and asked if he'd seen an Amish man.

He said, "Yes, but not lately."

On the way back to father's house, the mail carrier said there were some Amish "down this road."

We went and there were several Amish families, all living close to each other and all related. We asked if they'd seen Adam Hostetler today.

The said "no."

I told them why we'd come and they said they were glad to hear that, because they didn't like to see him living all alone. If they could do anything to help, let them know. I was glad to hear that.

We went on back to father's house. He wasn't there yet. We were hungry and tired.

I took the mail carrier home.

I went to sleep as soon as I got back.

I was awakened by my father's voice. He said "I knew you was here."

I said "How did you know it was me?"

We told him what we had in mind.

He said he couldn't leave all the stuff here.

I suggested a sale.

He couldn't figure out how we could have a sale quickly enough.

I went and told the Amish we were having a sale. They came over and I auctioned off some of the stuff.

When we got back to Kansas, he stayed with me more than all the other children combined. He could have gone to live with one of his brothers in Indiana, but he was quite satisfied.

I give mama the credit for that; she was so congenial, she could get along with anyone.



In the Descendants of David J. and Magdalena Hochstetler, Third Edition 1995 listing for Adam D. ("Davey's" father) is an interview from July 1994:

Adam's granddaughter Lucille (#298) remembers attending with her family the Hochstetler Homecoming in Indiana in 1928, which Adam also attended. Adam also spent some time in Indiana during the final months of his father David's life, and was there when he died in 1929. some time after that Adam was living in southern Mississippi all alone on a peanut farm near Picayune. [There was a small Amish settlement in that county from 1929-1936 but it is not known if that was the attraction for Adam to move there. It is known that Adam's brother Samuel visited Hancock co. in Jan. 1930 and preached for that Amish group. See Luthy, p. 230ff.] Lucille remembers that between Christmas 1930 and New Years their family went to Picayune in their big Nash car to bring Adam to Hutchinson to live with them. On this trip they stopped in Popular (sic) Bluff, MO to visit her Aunt Lydia's family. Adam died of a stroke and was found dead along the canal in Hutchinson where he had gone walking near son David's home on Christmas Day 1931. 

1930s:

We were planning on visiting east Missouri to see Lydia (my sister) and her family. They were moving farther east and we realized it'd be even harder to see them after they moved. By this time Vernon was about 13.

We went through Hutchinson so loaded up in the car that a policeman pulled us over.

When we were in Sikeston, Missiouri, we decided we ought to go see dad. He had moved to Mississippi and still have [sister] Fanny with him. She had reached "the age," where the children leave home, but was still helping dad.

When we decided to go to Mississippi we tried to get Lydia to go with us to try to get papa to come back. She joined us in the crowded car. Her husband gave us $25 for expenses.

I got so sleepy I started to fall asleep and ended up in the ditch. Neither the car nor its inhabitants were hurt.

When we got within 8 or 10 miles of papa's place I was wondering how we'd find him.

We went past a few buildings where a man was standing. I hollered for him to come and answer some question. I asked him if he knew where the Amish community was.

He said, "Oh, yes. I was a mail carrier."

So I asked him if he knew where a man named Adam Hostetler lived.

He said "Oh, yeah." He started to try to tell me how to get there. I thought the way the lay of the land was I might get lost, so I asked if he'd come along and show us how to get there, then I'd take him back.

When we got there the house was just a small house, one room with a small attic overhead. It was locked with a padlock, and I said "Are you sure?"

He said "I am sure." I unlocked the trunk, got a hammer, and hit the padlock with one lick to get it open.

I told the ladies to go in and make themselves at home.

We had stopped and picked up some groceries for all of us. I told the ladies to make them a meal and the man and I took off.

The man said "sometimes he goes and tries to sell peanuts at the grocery store."

We went to the grocery store and I told them I was Adam's son and we were trying to persuade him to come up where some relatives are.

He said "Well, I'm glad to hear that. We don't like to see him over there all alone. Not long ago there was an elderly man not very far from here who lived alone, with no one to see after him. Someone went to check on him and he was dead. Every evening before I go to bed I look over to see if he's got a light, 'cause then I figured he'd be okay."

From Single Man to Married with a Child - the 1910s

Herbert Shaw, the Captain's son, was my age and took an interest in me. They wanted to go the "open air" street meetings, so I carried the American flag.

One night, after meeting, I asked one of the young ladies if I could walk her home. She said "I guess so."

They had a porch to sit on, and we sat there with our feet hanging down. I couldn't think of anything to say and she couldn't either. I remember that I asked her three times how far it was to Main Street. When I left I felt really good that I finally had a girlfriend.

I walked her home for several weeks before I could carry on a conversation with her. Her name was Bessie. I eventually married her.

I told her that sometime I had a question I wanted to ask her. I don't know whether she said "I guess so" or what. We were engaged for several months. [And that's the extent of what we know about their courtship.]

We were married in a house by the same preacher who married her sister Cloy.

When they were moving from Colorado they had to sell the belongings they couldn't move with them. Lucy went to help them sell and move. The first place they went to was Hutchinson, Kansas, to our home. We'd only been married a year or so. Lucy saw that someone would be there to help with our first load. Instead of going west to her place, she stayed to help.

Before the baby was born I got a job on a farm. World War I was going on. I got notice to come to the draft board in Langdon. I went and the farmer I worked for had gotten a notarized statement to say I was needed to work on the farm. They didn't pay much attention to the paper, but told me to step on the scale.

Since I weighed only about 110 pounds I was too small to be drafted, and since my chest was all caved in they said I could go back to farming. I was 21 [in 1917].

The first time I voted, I remember everyone said that Wilson had kept us out of war and that he'd keep us our of war again if he was elected for a second term. So I voted for him. The war started anyhow, soon after he was re-elected.

Meeting an "Open Air" Meeting of The Salvation Army

When I worked for Charlie Miller, south of Ellis, one of his brothers had a suit of English clothes that just fit me. I bouth it for $5. A nice suit. I wore that suit even until I was west of Beloit [in north Kansas northwest of Salina and northeast of Hays] for the Olsens.

While I was working for them, I'd go to Sunday School with them in their nice, big limousine. Then I got started going to Sunday School within walking distance of where I was working in Solomon Rapids, several miles west of Beloit.

South of their farm was where they'd have church in a school house once a month, when a preacher from Beloit would come out.

I got a job in Hutchinson working at Swift Packing Company. I started eating at a little restaurant, Portland Coffee House. It was short order but I liked it. You could get a good meal for 15¢.

I got a room at 110 E. 8th St., the Rebard Annex Hotel.

One winter after I quit working at Swift (at Christmas) I took care of a sick man who needed help to get in and out of bed. Then I worked for Mrs. Richard Paine.

One Saturday at the Portland Coffee House one of the waitresses and I were talking about me getting a room and she suggested that the dishwasher, Dave Roberts, was looking for a roommate. I talked with him and when he got through with his job we went out together.

When we got outside, I heard some music, the beating of a drum and a cornet. I'd heard a Salvation Army "Open Air" meeting once before in Denver, so I said to Dave "Let's go see what that is."

It was outside the First National Bank. After having gone to the theater  I felt guilty, so I was drawn to the Salvation Army "Open Air." They announced there would be a meeting following. I tried to get Dave to go with me. He wouldn't go but I went anyway.

I felt right at home. They announced there'd be another meeting tomorrow. A man named Starkey was preaching.

I felt so much different I went back Sunday morning. They invited everyone back Sunday afternoon. I went then, too. I got to going regularly. One night I went to the altar; several others were there, too.

After a while, the officer felt it was time to enroll some of the young people as soldiers, to swear them in by reading the "Articles of War." One of the Articles, I've never forgotten, was "I pledge myself to live and die in the ranks of The Salvation Army."

I couldn't make up my mind to take that step. I didn't want to, but they kept calling me up so I went. And I still feel bad that I left the ranks, because it was so emphatic.

Ruth and Arriving in Hutchinson

Eventually Ruth wanted me to come and see her. She'd tell me about her boyfriend Bill and her cousin who was a good friend. She'd tell me about her and Bill going dancing on Saturday.

I'd write and tell her that it would be of no use for me to come, 'cause she had a boyfriend and he wanted her to dance, and I wanted to go to church and Sunday School.

She talked to her mother and her mother said that she would take care of Bill, while Ruth would entertain me.

So I took her at her word and quit my job and went to see Ruth. When I got off the train, there was Ruth, her mother, and her cousin. They took me way out in the country.

They entertained me well for a while.

On Thursday and Friday everything went well. On Saturday night, Bill showed up and wanted to go to the dance. When I said I didn't want to go to the dance, Ruth's mother made Ruth stay home.

After that, Ruth hardly spoke to me, and I wanted to get out of there. It was too far to walk, so I waited until someone headed into town to get a ride with them. I was pretty discouraged by the time I got a ride.

I knew I had a brother in Reno County, south of Hutchinson, so instead of going back to near Beloit I went to Hutchinson and got a job there and didn't have a girlfriend for a long time.

The first night in Hutchinson I went to the Home Theater, which was a vaudeville show. Some call them girly shows. I started thinking "What if one of those girls was my sister? Would I approve of her doing that type of thing?" So I didn't go back.

The next night I went to the City Amusement Park. They had different kinds of music there, but I still felt uncomfortable. That was a Friday night.

By Saturday I had gotten a roommate, a 17-year-old boy. I was 18 or 19.

To Beloit, Kansas; Lucy and the Fire

After I was out there, they liked my work, but my sister was with relatives in Kansas and wanted me to come and work there.

I told the folks about the letter and that I wanted to go.

I worked through the harvest, but didn't have enough money to do that, so I got another job. When that was over, in the fall, until I had the money to go.

When I got there, I realized I hadn't got much of an education, so I thought I ought to go back home to Colorado and go to school.

I said something to one of the men who was working at the same place I was and they told the man I was working for about my desire to go back to Colorado.

The man called me in on a Sunday morning to the front room.

He told me he understood that I wanted to finish common school (elementary or grade school), since I had only gone as far as the fifth grade.

He said "You don't have to leave to do that. You can go to school from right here. Just help with the chores, night and morning, and help around on Saturdays, whatever needs to be done. So I did.

I went to school and finished 6th, 7th, and 8th grades.


After I was there quite a while, the Mrs. said to me "Have you got any relatives?" Olsen was their name. They were Swedes. They had two girls and were very close. But she said "I never see you get any mail. Or send any."

I told her that when I left home I told dad I was leaving and asked him if he would write and he said "No, I don't know if I'll have time."

The Mrs. said "You sit down and write your father a letter."

I said "He won't answer it."

But she insisted, so I wrote him. He answered it, like she said he would.

I worked along time there and liked it. In the mean time my sister Lucy, who had got me to come to Kansas, was working about 18 miles from there. There were three children and no mother nearby, so she took the role of mother.

One morning, as she was finishing breakfast, one of the boys went to start the fire. They used corncobs soaked with coal oil to start the fire. By using coal oil on cobs to get the fire started, he'd soiked three corn cobs up in a tin can, and when he'd get the fire started he'd take the can to the pantry and put three more corncobs in it so it'd be ready for the next time.

One of the boys would do it in the morning, before he'd head out to do the feeding of the horses and cows. He'd get that done before feeding and by the time he'd finish feeding breakfast woudl be ready.

That morning he left the can on the warming oven on the stove. Lucy had taken the lid off and put a frying pan on the open fire.

After she finished cooking breakfast, she took the pan off the fire, reached for the stove hook to replace the lid over the fire, and knocked the can of oil over, spilling it on the stove, into the fire, onto the floor, and on her clothes. It all lit up.

She was burnt, and bad!

When the skin started to heal, they had to graft skin on. They couldn't do skin grafting near there, so they had to send her to Kansas City, to Memorial Hospital (KU Medical Center). They phoned me and said she'd have to be taken to Kansas City and a relative would have to go with her. She went on the train.

They said they'd bring her to Beloit, which was quite a ways from where she lived, to catch the Union Pacific railroad at the depot there. I was to meet her there. I spend a number of days with her at the hospital.

In the mean time, I got to talking to a man and a woman downstairs from Lucy.

They said they had a daughter, Ruth, there for eye surgery that was in the same ward. They were from Mead, Kansas. We got to be friends. When we got ready to leave, to go back to work, I was saying goodbye to them. The girl said she wanted me to write to her when I got back. So I did.

Finally Lucy and the girl were released.

Return to Colorado - Riding a Steer and a Bucking Bronco

"This may be the only time you'll get to be home with everyone."

I said I don't want to go home until I've paid for the lap robe.

He said "I'll pay for the lap robe." He was a wonderful big brother.

When we got to Kit carson we walked the twelve miles to home. The others were all there. Father was outside the sod house. He put his hand out to shake hands with Amasa and then with me. All was all right.

While all the children were there Lydia and I got in the buggy to see what the land looked like. On the way over she told me of some pranks her husband had pulled. When she told me them I felt free to divulge the story of how the cow lost her switch.

I worked at home that summer.

The next fall dad had gone to Soretta and met Charlie Collins. Charlie told dad that he wanted a chore and feed boy. Dad got me the job. I worked for Charlie that winter.

There was a man lived south of him. I was friends with his son. We were feeding cattle on the lone prairie. We were feeding them cottonseed cake.

When the feed wagon was loaded we'd yell "haay-oh" and the cattle would come from all directions to get some food. They'd get crowded around three or four deep, packed in close. We'd have to wait a while for them to get together, not just feed some and let others get hungry.

After talking awhile he said "You can ride one of them steer."

I said, "Oh, I'd be afraid to."

"Well, you don't need to be afraid. You can slide down on him. You see they're right up close. You can get on him and get your hands on each side of his flanks. He can't get out until you're on him, with the other steer so close." He talked me into it.

I got on him. He worked so hard to get away from the wagon that by the time he was free to buck or run he was too tired. I ran him until I got tired.

That's the only time I rode a steer like that.

I rode a bucking bronco that Father had. He bucked me off and knocked me senseless. I didn't know anything for a while then.

This man moved to Hilltop, Colorado, southeast of Denver. Not far from the foothills of the mountains.

Life in Ellis

Eli and his father were working on a farm in Haywood, Kansas. Haywood was three miles north of Ellis. The owner let me eat, sleep, and help until I found somewhere else to work. Eli's father was a good, large, strong man. I was just a small, little "spillin'" thing at age 17 and couldn't handle feed like he could.

Eli's father knew a man named Charlie Mills that was living south of Ellis on a farm. He was road supervisor for the county. Eli's father made arrangements for me to meet him in Ellis to work for him.

On the way out he said "I used to railroad and got so tired of it that I thought I'd like to get something else. But while I'm doing this and I don't have to do anything else, I'll just keep railroading." He also said "I also decided to work in such a way that you leave in such a way you could always come back. No matter what happens. For example, if a horse gets crippled up, a horse trying to get across a fence and then  try to back up and cuts his foot up, be sure to tell me." He was a church man who taught me a lot of good things.

Charlie Mills told me "I'll give you 75 cents a day for working on the road and room and board. While we're not on the road I'll give you spending money." It worked out real nice.


Seven years after the first time I was living in Ellis I came back. I got off the train, called 303 and said "Mrs. Norquist, this is Dave Hochstetler. I'd like a job." She gave it to me.


I went to stay at one man's house for the winter. He gave me $5 a month for spending money. I was supposed to be helping with the chores, but there wasn't much chores to do.

My English wasn't too good, because I hadn't been enough with English speaking people to speak well.

One morning after breakfast I went down the slight hill to the barn and was checking to see if there was anything that needed to be done. There were four or five calves shut up in a pen inside the barn. I watered them and the man came down, saw the calves and said "here's these calves you haven't watered yet."

I said "I know better" in somewhat of a harsh way.

A few minutes later he called me on it. He explained how it sounded, and helped me with expression.

Another time, after supper, they had company - his brother and cousins. Three men and I played a game of cards, a "pitch" game. We were playing and when I counted the cards we argued over who played the two-spot. I quit and then his brother Judd and he argued over it. Finally he said "I guess Dave did play it." But I didn't want that kid to talk like that to me.

Some time after, Judd and I were putting up ice that had frozen six or eight inches thick on the pond.


My father had an ice house made of wood in Colorado. We'd pack the ice in sawdust if it was available.


In the spring I got a letter from Grandpa saying that he heard I left home. He said I ought to go home to Father, because there might be more than one side to this. He indicated that my father might be a little wrong, too.

Later I got company from eastern Kansas. I got a letter from Haven. [Haven, KS is between Hutchinson and Wichita.] Amasa was on his way to Colorado.


I tried to go to Ellis to the picture show twice a week. One night after the picture show after hitching the horses up I noticed the nice, expensive lap road that went with the horse and buggy were gone. [Crime even took place in Ellis.]

Amasa stopped to try to talk me into going back home. He called from Ellis and wanted to see me. He tried to persuade me but I said "No. Father told me never to come home. Besides, I don't have any spending money saved. I've always wanted a watch and I don't have a watch."

Amasa said "I'll get you a watch. I'll get you some spending money. I want you to go home." He said "Sister Lydia and her husband are the first ones to get married and the first ones to have a child. They'll be there. If you don't go it just won't be right." He just talked and talked and talked and persuaded me to go home with him. "This may be the only time you'll get to be home with everyone."

I said "I don't want to go home until I've paid for the lap robe."

Amasa was a wonderful big brother. I finally agreed to go.

Dating

When we moved to Colorado I was 15 and not quite old enough to start going with the girls. I thought I'd like to, but I didn't for quite some time.

Finally, after I got a little older, I did date one girl one time. I didn't ask for another date.

Years later I dated another Amish girl one evening. When we "dated" we'd stay in the house, talk, and visit with each other. I'd crawl in bed with her upstairs, right where her family was in bed. They allowed that. It was customary. All clothes were on.

Leaving Home

David did not enjoy Colorado as he had Indiana. It was not an easy place to farm; he didn't mind the hard work but there were many aggravations. David remembered his young life in Indiana where life never seemed so hard as it was in Colorado.

By the time he was a teenager David could do the work of a man. He thought of his older brothers making money for working. He didn't know what his father planned to do but there was no mention of moving to a more promising land and it seemed that prospects were getting darker in Colorado. He knew his father would strongly object to his leaving but as he thought about it he grew more convinced it was the thing to do.


In David's words:



I'd been thinking and wishing that I could leave Colorado, and get away from home. This was on my mind, day after day, week after week, month after month until finally I made up I was going to leave and I left.

I needed to get away from the environment.

It was the fall of the year, and I was in the field with a team of horses bringing in feed. Some Russian Thistles had gotten in the feed, and you had to cut the feed like cane.

I didn't have a decent pair of shoes and I did a very dirty deal. Dad had a team and wagon also.

I had already in mind to leave and just got worked up enough over the stickers and thistle in the feed and around my feet, and it just gave me enough nerve to decide that this is "Then I'm going to leave."

I left the team and wagon stand and I went over to where dad was loading up his team and I said "I'm leaving."

Very little else was said but I do remember dad said "Well, you don't need to expect to ever come back." I was 16 or 17 at the time. Father was very serious, seldom humorous.

Eli had moved to Kansas where he got acquainted a girl who he would marry; she was my first wife's sister. I had already told Eli in a letter and he said he'd send me some money to come on, and he did. I had already secured a little satchel, not even a briefcase, more like a doctor's medicine bag than a suitcase. I hid that in the barn with the great hayloft in it, about a mile and a quarter from where we lived.

Our closest neighbor lived about a mile from us. Their name was Duddy. They had a couple of daughters, and the family were good friends of mine. I stayed there overnight my first night away from home.

The next morning I started out for the railroad. I got almost to Sorrento, a city with a train depot and a general store/post office, when a man on horseback came from the opposite direction. He asked me if I was looking for work. He didn't even ask my name.

I said "Yes, I'd like to have some work."

He said "I've got some work I could let you do. How much do you want?"

"Well," I said, "Whatever's right."

"Well, I had a boy work for me this summer, by the name of Carl Duddy, who worked for me for 75 cents a day."

"Well, that'd be alright." I wasn't even used to having spending money then.

He said "I'll tell you what. I'm on the way to a sale. You go down to the first house just north of the post office and the depot. You find a team tied to a manger there in the barn. You'll see the harness there. You harness them up. But before you do that, you go tell my wife that I sent you and that you're to harness the team up and rake up the feed that's ready to be raked up. And when dinner time comes she'll have dinner ready for you. You go in there and have dinner."

There was nothing more said about wages.

I did what he said and she had dinner for me. I worked there for almost three weeks and when he paid me $7.00 I realized that he never said he'd pay me 75 cents a day.

Taming Wild Horse

Since there were no trees on the tree claim to use for lumber the family set about to construct a sod house. Sod buildings were constructed by using sod for bricks. When the pond dried up in the summer, Adam and his sons used a plow to turn up strips of sod eight to ten inches wide and about three inches deep. Around the pond grasses would form a sod, so at the right time of the year blocks could be cut from it.

For the sod houses the family cut strips about 14 to 18 inches long and laid them like bricks, with no mortar or anything else needed. There weren't that many sod houses, but the Hochstetler's was one of the larger ones around.

Ours was one of the few sod houses. It was warm in the winter, cool in the summer. We even had a cellar under it, and a second story. I always wanted to go back to see it.

When all the children were grown, during World War II, Lucille was living in Wichita. She wanted to go to western Kansas to visit some friends. She wanted a man to go with them. I took the opportunity to go back to Colorado.

I got off the bus in Kit Carson and located one of our neighbors. I also learned that a son of a rancher I knew in Kansas lived across the street from the lady.

I went to talk to him and he wanted to take me out to the ranch. When we got there there were not any buildings left, not even a pile of sod. No timber, just one stick.

When we moved to Colorado we had a separator for the cream. The bowl of that cream separator was setting there, with one stick and a snake (not left from when we lived there) that had moved in.  

They also built a foursquare barn out of the sod. [Foursquare refers to the four large rooms set inside the large square perimeter. They were often very large and used primarily in cold climates where a great deal of fodder for livestock needed to be stored for the severe winters.] The barn had to be built large enough to house not only the milk cows but the calves and horses as well.

Adam had rented a little house about three miles from the claim to live in until they were able to build their sod house. When he had purchased the land the previous fall Adam and contracted with a man who had machinery and could put out a small crop of wheat.

In the spring, when the ground was rich and fertile the crop looked good as it came up. Adam anticipated a good crop of wheat the first summer.

But when summer arrived there was not even enough grain to plant another crop. The lack of rain had taken its toll, so Adam took some of the savings and purchased enough new grain to plan a full crop.

Eastern Colorado turned out to be a difficult place to earn a living. Sometimes the crop would be ruined when a rancher would cut the wire fence down and let the range cattle eat the plants to the ground. Even the feed crops were not immune from difficulties. Russian thistles and tumbleweed would get in the crops and were impossible to remove and made the hay worthless. It became incredibly difficult to make a living as the years passed and the savings dwindled.

Moving to Colorado

After a number of years Uncle Joe and his family and our family were the only ones left in Brown County.

One winter Father went west to Oregon to visit his brother Daniel and family and came back by way of Colorado to visit a settlement of Amish northeast of Wild Horse, in eastern Colorado near Kit Carson, Colorado where the Union Pacific railroad goes through the two towns. [Wild Horse is almost exactly 100 miles directly east of Colorado Springs.]

While Father was there he had a notion he wanted to settle there, too. He got in touch with a land agent and traded his Indiana land for 320 acres of barren prairie land: no trees, shrubbery, nothing like that. Just barren buffalo grass and loco weed.

Loco weed comes up in the spring. Sometimes, because there is no grass around, stock (especially cattle and young calves eating away from their mother) start nibbling that and go crazy. They'll quit eating anything else because they just want that. Like a drunk. They get thin and finally die.

After Father came home from trading the land he told us we were going to move, that we'd have a sale in the fall. (This was in the spring of the year.)

The next spring Father chartered a boxcar to take our furniture and a couple of heifer calves from Edinburg (12 miles north of we lived) to Colorado. The children all came home for that. When the boxcar was loaded, they fixed a place to eat in the boxcar, on either side of the doors. On one side were the stock and a few hens, and on the other was the furniture and the living area they had fixed.

Amasa and Annan went in the car and took the dog with them. It was a wonderful, wonderful cow dog. He was a dog we could send out in the evening to get the cows in the woods or pasture. He was so good we wanted him in Colorado.

Sometimes they'd stop the car and get out to get water for the stock while the steam engine stopped
for water of its own.

They wanted to take the opportunity for the dog to have a little run and do his dirty work while the train was stopped. Usually there was no trouble getting the dog back on, but one time the train started more quickly than expected.

Amasa and Annan called and called for the dog but couldn't get him. They didn't want to be left, so they stayed in the boxcar. The dog never did show up.

If anybody ever missed a dog, I missed that dog in Colorado. He saved me from having to go after the cattle. It would have been easier in Colorado for him, with no woods or hills.

The rest of the family went by passenger train to Colorado while the boxcar took four or five days.

Father made arrangements with some of the Amish men who were already living there to go with their boxwagons to Kit Carson to get the furniture, heifers, and Amasa and Annan.

We were standing there when the train came in. The colored porter and the conductor were standing there on the platform. One of them said to the other, seeing us in Amish clothes, "see them barn doors," referring to the Amish pants we wore with buttons on both sides in front. I didn't know what they were referring to, but my brother did.

We rented a little house in Colorado about three miles from the half section (320 acres) of land. Father had a chance to get a tree claim. I don't know why they called it a tree claim - there were no trees on it! You'd have to live on it a certain length of time and it would be yours. It was a good piece of land, with a pond on it when it rained. Sometimes it'd get so warm and lacking in rain in the summer that the pond would go dry. In the spring of the year, after the snow melted, it'd be a pretty good sized pond. Enough for the cattle to drink, and sometimes there'd be enough water that the ducks traveling north or south would stop. There were no fish in it, because it'd dry up in the summer time.

[Note: A tree claim granted 160 acres with the agreement that at least 2700 trees per acre would be planted on ten acres of the claim within four years of filing the claim, and that at least 675 of those trees per acre would be thriving after eight years.]

Life in Colorado

Originally Amasa and Annan and Eli (whose mother had died) and his father were there.

\
My brother Annan and I tried to get some money once. In our family the children didn't receive an allowance, and any money we earned was needed to support the family.

It was winter and a bad storm had passed through with a lot of snow.

David tells the story:

The range cattle, which are supposed to feed on the prairie, couldn't get anything to eat. As you rode along you would see cattle in the fields who had starved to death. If someone saw a dead steer they would skin the cattle, bring the hide in to the bank in Kit Carson, and get 75 cents for each hide they presented. The bank would look for the brand to see whose cattle it was, since several herds would graze at once on the free range.
Annan and I knew where there was a dead critter near a deserted house and the barn where I had stashed the pair of trousers I had sliced up. Annan and I thought that maybe if we skinned the critter at night, and not on Dad's time, we could have the money to divide between us.
In order for us to get it we took the hide over to a neighbor's that had also skinned some range cattle, for him to take with his hides to the bank. When he went in the inspector wasn't in so he just left the hides. The inspector would keep track and whenever someone came in from our neighborhood the inspector would give him everyone's money.
Sooner or later someone came back from town and gave Dad all the money that was meant for our family, including the 75 cents. Not quite understanding why the money was there, but knowing that we must have arranged for the skin to be taken in, Father accepted the money.
The problem was that the family needed the money so badly that Father just used it to buy necessitites for the home, and we never did see the money.

Amish people didn't give money to spend. If you worked for a neighbor the father would get the money. When the child was grown the father would set up the children. [Usually with 40 acres and a team of horses and some cattle.] 

Blizzards would sometimes come quickly and without enough warning to adequately prepare.

Once, a shepherd was in the process of moving the sheep from one corral to another. Before he got to the main corral the blizzard had hit. He noticed a smaller corral that the sheep would fit into and put them there. The corral contained just a fence and a shepherd's shack. But that would do until the storm passed over.

He herded all the sheep into the corral and headed into the shack. Luckily the shack had a stove in it which used cow chips for fuel. The shepherd settled down for the night and waited for the storm to end.

The next morning when he walked outside he realized that the 700 sheep, in order to keep warm, had huddled together. As the snow piled higher and higher they moved closer and closer together to stay warm. Eventually the snow completely covered them. It wasn't long until the snow kept out not only the cold but the air as well. The 700 sheep had smothered to death in the snow trying to keep from freezing to death.

Adam and his sons went over to see the sight where the sheep had died. David realized as never before how difficult it was to make a living in Colorado.

One winter after one of the blizzards the family couldn't find some of their cows. They went looking for them and finally located them.

The storm had traveled south and the cows had followed the storm. They had crossed over fences which were covered high with snow drifts. It took several days to find them, which meant they had not been milked in that time.

By the time they were found their udders were frozen. "The lower parts were black and blue, and the tits had icicles on them." David was given the task of milking them and he soon discovered their udders were so frozen no milk would come out.

"I looked around for a solution and found a chicken feather. I took the feather, dug a hole through the shaft with baling wire to hollow it out, and forced the feather through the lower part of the tits. It was quite painful for the cows, but not as painful as it would have been had the milk not been removed."

In the spring of the second year we were in Colorado Eli and his father, Amasa and Annan went to western Kansas. They went by horseback and settled near Ellis, Kansas.
Later Amasa and Annan went on to Hutchinson, and found work there. And by the time I had gone to Hutchinson Eli's father and stepmother had also moved to Hutchinson. They would live there the rest of their lives.

Father, Sister and I were all that were left in Colorado.

Childhood

The family moved to Brown County, Indiana, but not intact. With mother Catherine gone decisions had to be made on what to do with seven children. Lena, Amasa, and Lydia were old enough to stay with their father and help out, but the others would have to be raised by other family members.

The youngest, baby David, would go to live with Grandfather and Grandmother Hochstetler "until I was able to help father, at about age nine or ten. "Grandpa and Grandma gave me a wonderful home, treated me like their own child."



Annan and Fanny would be taken by an aunt and uncle who lived in Ohio, a substantial distance by buggy. David would have ample opportunity to spend time with his oldest siblings and his father, but never again would all the children live together.

David remembered a happy childhood; he had cousins nearby to play with, sons of his Uncles Levi, Sam, and Joe. While they didn't have "boughten" toys they had much to play with. David's grandfather once made David a sled, for instance.

One of his closest cousin friends was Elmer. "Elmer had a sharp pocket knife that he was always using to carve with. He once carved sticks into play horses," David shared. "When I tried to carve a horse I realized Elmer was much better at carving than I was." As Elmer grew his talent with wood grew. He eventually made his own wagon, and as an adult was a carpenter.

"I went to school in Brown County and had different winters and different teachers there. I remember one of the last ones was Charles Campbell."

"When we were old enough we went back to Father. I, being the youngest, was the last to return to the home." The home had one large room downstairs, one upstairs. "It had been a storebuilding. There was enough room upstairs for all of us children. Me being the youngest, I got to sleep with Dad downstairs. We lived in that house a long time."

A child younger than eight or nine would carry drinking water to the field, collect eggs, and do other chores. In the summer we'd wrap gunny sacks around the jugs to keep them cold on the way to the field.

I started to help milk the cows when I was too small to hold the bucket betwen my legs. I would hold a cup in one hand and milk the cow with the other, then empty the cup into the bucket. 

One day David was driving the cows up a grade in one of the pastures, and he noticed two cows, a large red and white one and a little black one. They were walking next to each other, and he noticed their tails swishing back and forth. "I'll just tie those two cows' tails together," he thought. He assumed they would "push out their bodies in the back parts," but instead they began to walk away from each other. Since the knot had been tied in a "hard knot" the harder the cows pulled away from each other the tighter the knot got. Something had to give. Since one cow was bigger than the other, one cow went back to the barn with two tails and the other didn't have one.

"It was the spring of the year and the flies were really bad, eating on the cows, including those bad flies with the short stickers, that suck the blood out.

"That evening my sisters Fanny and Lydia and I were milking the cows. We had so many cows that it took three of us to milk them. It was after dark, and I heard one of my sisters say to the other 'Something's happened to this cow's tail. She don't swish too good.'

"I kept myself real still and didn't say a word. And I didn't say anything to anybody until after we had left Indiana." The family remained in Indiana fro another six years.

"Eventually Grandpa and Grand moved to the north part of Indiana, so Uncle Sam and Uncle Joe moved to Brown County and Uncle Levi moved to Howard County, Indiana."

Catching Rabbits and Upsetting Father

David (my grandfather) tells the story about making a friend shortly after moving to Colorado:


Soon after we moved there I heard that there was a boy about my age who was sick. I rode over to their house on our black horse to see him. He must have had typhoid fever, because he wasn't supposed to have anything to drink.

That was the first time I met Eli Hostetler and his family. They lived about two miles from where we lived. From that first visit on we were good friends until his death.

Christmas day when I was 16 I decided to get my hair cut and didn't want my father to cut it straight across the back. The style among some of the Amish boys at that time was to have it cut more tapered in the back. I wanted to have it like the other Amish boys had their hair cut, so I thought "I'll go over to Eli's house and have him cut it."

When I got about halfway there, where a man by the name of Dave Cuff lived, I saw Eli. He had come over to Dave's place for Christmas day and had brought his shotgun with him. Dave and Eli were in the field shooting rabbits.

The snow was deep, but it was a nice day. I had my dog with me. This dog was a long-legged black dog with a natural bobbed tail. He was a good rabbit dog. WIth the black dog and black horse I stood out against the snow.

I saw Eli and Dave in the field, not too far from the farm buildings, so I went over to where they were and told them that I was on my way over to have Eli cut my hair. They wanted to continue to shoot rabbits so I joined them.

I noticed a jack-rabbit sitting there in the snow. I got off Old Prince, my horse (he would stay wherever I'd leave him) and I easied over there where the rabbit was sitting in the snow almost all covered to where I could see only his head.

I stayed back where he couldn't see me till I got right close to him and I grabbed for him through the snow and got him. That's one rabbit I caught by hand.

The dog was busy catching rabbits, too. He would catch them and wait for me to come over and pick them up. Between the dog and me we'd caubght five Jack-rabbits and one cottontail. And we didn't use a gun to catch them.


After Eli and Dave had gotten all the rabbits they wanted and were ready to go to the house they told me to go with them. I said I wanted to go to Eli's house and get my hair cut. Mr. Cuff said "You can get it done at my house. We can take care of that." I figured we'd probably have some dinner, too, and wasn't sure, but his insisted so I went in.

After dinner he went and got the scissors. He said "Let me cut your hair."

"No, I want Eli to cut it."

No, let him cut it," Eli insisted.

Finally I just gave in and he started cutting. I could tell he wasn't cutting like Eli would have cut it. After he'd cut quite a while I reached up there to feel and Boy! That was short hair. Boy-Oh-Boy!

"What'll I do now?" I thought. I couldn't let my father see my hair cut like that or I'd really be in trouble. It was much too short.

I tried to keep my father from finding out by not letting him get in a position to see the back of my head. I'd leave the cap on as much as possible. Before meals he'd make me wash my hands and face and I'd still have my cap on. I'd wait until Father was already at the table before I'd come to sit down to eat.

It worked for one or two days. Finally, at one meal he wanted me to sit down first and I didn't want to sit down, but I didn't say anything. He finally said it strong enough that I figured I'd better go sit down.

"Who cut your hair?"

"Dave Cuff."

"It's the first time.... Why, you look like a babboon! It's the first time it's ever been cut like that and it better be the last time. You can't even get ahold of it!" he said as he ran his hand through it.

More than one way to skin a cat

The boys used to sleep upstairs, the girls downstairs. After the older boys had grown and left home I was the only one left upstairs. Father had one of the downstairs bedrooms, and Fanny had the other.

We were a sleepy-headed family. After a hard day's work we were trying to read and keep from going to sleep. Fanny eventually went to bed, leaving father and I nodding to sleep. Finally Dad woke up, realized it was time to go to bed, and tried to get me awake. He thought he had me awake, and I started up the steps

I was trying to get my pants off on the way upstairs. I wasn't awake enough to know what I was doing, and the pant didn't want to come off. So I reached into my pocket and got my pocket knife, opened it up, and started to cut my pants legs. I split them wide open, from the bottom up. I got one of them that way and started up on the other one, when I woke up enough to know what I was doing.

That was a pretty good pair of trousers, and I knew I'd done the wrong thing and didn't want my sister, who had made the trousers, to know what I'd done, because she'd tell Dad and I'd get a scolding.

I didn't like scoldings, because sometimes it'd be more than just a scolding, if you know what I mean.

I managed to get that pair of pants out of the upstairs somehow without anyone knowing. I carried them off better than a mile from where we lived and put them in the attic of the little house where we first lived.

Introduction

Over 30 years ago my father sat down with my grandfather and had him recount some of the stories from his long life. My grandfather David was in his eighties, and living in Nevada, Missouri. (Pronounced Neh-VAY-da.) The stories were captured on long-gone cassette tapes and I had transcribed them onto legal-length yellow paper.

After Dovie and I were married and I was going through The Salvation Army's School for Officers Training in Chicago I took a creative writing class and Dovie agreed to transcribe my handwritten notes in some more chronological fashion into more legible typed notes. I used these notes (unsuccessfully - after multiple revisions I never got the viewpoint consistent) for the beginning of telling Papa's Story more completely. I never got beyond the following, but this blog will at least transcribe his stories another time for more to read.

Here is the ill-fated attempt at creative writing, combined with Grandpa's actual words (in quotes), and other research. This week's post:


My grandfather David was born David Adam Hochstetler on August 13, 1895 in Fayette County, Illinois, near Vandalia, the youngest of eight children. His mother Catherine, who was 35, and his father Adam, who was 33, had been married for almost ten years. Eight children in ten years was not unusual for Old Order Amish families; Adam was the oldest of twelve children.

Old Order Amish is a branch of the Swiss Anabaptist movement that fled Europe because of persecution. They settled primarily in Pennsylvania, but  had (and still have) communities in Ohio, Indiana, and other midwestern states.

The day came when Adam gathered the family together. Lena and Lydia, the two oldest girls, tended to the preparations for breakfast. The chores had been completed and everyone was hungry. "Grandpa Hochstetler had purchased quite a bit of land in Brown County, Indiana. Father got part, Uncle Joe and Sam and Levi got part. Enough for each to have a good farm to move onto, with buildings."

Adam could not tell the children the nature of Catherine's illness. It was of a kind that usually would only cause a few days of discomfort. But Catherine had worked so hard in preparation for the move, when she should have taken things easier. The children were not old enough to realize the seriousness of the situation,

On September 23, 1896 Catherine died. David was just over a year old, and what he would be told about his mother's death was very little. "Mother died in the process of getting ready to move from Illinois to Indiana. Others spoke of mother as being a small-like woman." From what was not said it is likely that there was hemorrhaging from complications that began with David's birth.


It had been three days since Catherine had died. Members of the local Amish community began to take over responsibilities of the household. Women prepared the food for the family and took care of the youngest children. Some Amish families would come by to sit in silent respect and support for the family. Young men handled all the chores and responsibilities of the farm while the family was left to grieve.

The burial would take place in the Amish cemetary at the top of a hill. At the end of September in Illinois the leaves are at their most colorful, and it would normally be a pretty drive along the stream that the road followed. A long procession of horse-drawn buggies came down the road.

At the end of the dirt road another road crossed. The procession stopped. The four pallbearers carried the pine casket to the top of a small hill. Next to the grave of the last Amish person to die was a recently dug grave. Slowly the men lowered the casket that contained the body of Catherine into the ground. She had been dressed completely in white; the family made the clothes she wore, the dress and hat. The cape and apron were the same ones she had worn on her wedding day.

Slowly the group turned to leave, and the relatives followed the family back to the house. For the first time since Catherine died the family would prepare a meal for everyone. This indicated the resumption of normal duties, the end of the funeral. The black clothes of mourning would be worn by the family for the next year.

[Years later, while I was visiting a friend near Vandalia he and I spent a hot afternoon searching through a field for the Amish cemetery where I eventually found Catherine's gravemarker at which I laid some wildflowers and took several photos.]


After a week the family loaded the wagon with their remaining belongings. Other personal property had already been shipped to Indiana by boxcar. After all the children were comfortably settled, with Lena (the oldest) taking care of the baby David, Adam climbed onto the driver's seat, unraveled the reins and unfastened the brake to the buggy. He was painfully aware of the empty seat beside him. It seemed as if it could never be filled again, and indeed it never would be.

When the house disappeared from view the family rode in silence, their thoughts focused on what lay ahead for them in Indiana.